Journal article
AviList: A Unified Global Checklist to Usher in an Era of Increased Taxonomic Stability
Biodiversity and conservation, Vol.First online
05/07/2025
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Abstract
Universally recognized scientific names for organisms are necessary for accurate and efficient communication. Incongruence in taxonomic treatments results in situations where one name is used for different entities or one entity is known by different names, with negative consequences for conservation, science, trade, legislation, law enforcement, and education, leading to discord among stakeholders and confusion among users. Within the ornithological community taxonomic incongruence among four widely adopted global bird checklists has led to calls for the development of a single unified global avian taxonomy or checklist. Here we introduce AviList, a comprehensive, collaborative and evolving effort towards developing a unified global avian taxonomy, spearheaded by representatives of most current global checklists and many major regional authorities, and supported by the International Ornithologists’ Union (IOU), BirdLife International and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. AviList version 2025, the first version, was officially launched on 11 June 2025 and is available online as a comprehensive, searchable public-access database. It recognizes 11,131 bird species in 2376 genera, 252 families and 46 orders. This global effort has resolved over 1000 species-level taxonomic incongruences among existing checklists.
With AviList’s launch, the IOC World Bird List and the Clements Checklist of Birds of the World have ceased any independent taxonomic updates, while BirdLife International is in the process of total alignment, leading to a harmonization in the classification underpinning a number of major bird projects, including eBird, Macaulay Library, Merlin Bird ID and the IUCN Red List. Adoption of AviList will improve inter-operability across global biodiversity, molecular, ecological and spatial databases (e.g. GBIF). Strong governance of AviList will ensure it is a “living” document that is regularly updated by a global community of bird taxonomists as new scientific advances are made, with positive impacts for conservation, academia and human society. It is hoped that AviList will support and encourage taxonomic science by identifying areas where further research is most needed, and that it will provide a blueprint for taxonomic authorities in other organismic groups endeavoring to achieve taxonomic harmonization.
Details
- Title
- AviList: A Unified Global Checklist to Usher in an Era of Increased Taxonomic Stability
- Creators
- Frank E Rheindt - National University of SingaporePaul F Donald - BirdLife internationalDavid B Donsker - IOC World Bird List (USA, New Hampshire)Jeffrey A Gerbracht - Cornell Lab of OrnithologyMarshall J Iliff - Cornell Lab of OrnithologyDenis Lepage Lepage - Birds CanadaJanette A Norman - Southern Cross UniversityPamela C Rasmussen - IOC World Bird List (USA, New Hampshire)Richard Schodde - CSIROThomas S Schulenberg - Cornell Lab of OrnithologyJuan I Areta - Instituto de Bio y Geociencias del Noroeste Argentino – CONICET (Argentina)Frederik P BrammerR Terry Chesser - Eastern Ecological Science Center (USA, Maryland)Robert J DowsettAlan PetersonPer Alstrom - Uppsala UniversityMartin Stervander - Natural History Museum (UK, Tring)J V Remsen - Louisiana State UniversityStephen T Garnett - Charles Darwin UniversityDominique G Homberger - Louisiana State UniversityFumin Lei - Chinese Academy of SciencesLes Christidis - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- Biodiversity and conservation, Vol.First online
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Grant note
- U.S. National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian), Washington, D.C
We thank the many museums and their collections managers and curators for providing access to their collections in the course of AviList's taxonomic committee work, including the Natural History Museum, Tring (UK), and the U.S. National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian), Washington, D.C. We thank numerous colleagues who shared unpublished data and opinions during taxonomic discussions. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. government.
- Identifiers
- 991013297055002368
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2025
- Academic Unit
- Research Infrastructure and Operations; Graduate School
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article